Review: 'The Shift' mixes biblical allegory with science-fiction flash, with some interesting but not satisfying results

The Old Testament meets old-school science fiction in “The Shift,” an interesting if not entirely successful attempt at retelling the story of Job — a tale of faith tested to the limit — in a modern setting.

When we’re introduced to Kevin Garner — played by Kristoffer Polaha, who has a lot of Hallmark movies on his resumé with the word “Christmas” in the title — he’s having a bad day. He just lost his high-paying Wall Street job when his firm collapsed under him, and he’s contemplating drinking his first beer after years of sobriety. Then a young woman, Molly (Elizabeth Tabish), on a dare from her girlfriends, sits down at the bar and starts to flirt with him. They get talking, and in short order move to dating, marriage and parenthood.

Then Kevin has an encounter with an enigmatic figure (played by veteran character actor Neal McDonough), a well-dressed, suave, blue-eyed gentleman. He is identified as The Benefactor, though he comments that title is one of the nicer ones he’s been given over the millennia. We figure out pretty quickly that The Benefactor is none other than the Devil.

The Benefactor has seen that Kevin’s current reality isn’t perfect — he and Molly are in a rough place, because of a tragedy that’s explained later in the movie — so he decides to yank Kevin into a different one. The Benefactor and his minions, called “shifters,” have the ability, through a keypad device on their wrists, to shift people around the multiverse (though they never use that word). 

The Benefactor makes an offer to Kevin: Renounce his so-called God, who has been conspicuously absent during Kevin and Molly’s bad times, and The Benefactor will give Kevin a life of wealth and influence. When Kevin says no — becoming the first Kevin in the multiverse to do so — The Benefactor plunks him down in a dystopian parallel world where there’s no faith and, importantly, no sign of Molly.

Writer-director Brock Heasley, adapting his 2017 short film for his feature debut, isn’t at all subtle in presenting this biblical allegory. The ham-fisted attempts to drive the message home get in the way of some strong storytelling and solid performances by Polaha, Tabish and Sean Astin as a nonbeliever who starts to get swayed by Kevin’s remembered scripture passages.

“The Shift” is the first work of fiction to be released by Provo-based Angel Studios — unless you count their Tim Ballard biopic “Sound of Freedom,” which hasn’t aged well in the last few weeks, and their sketchy documentary “After Death.” The company is employing the same marketing gimmick those other films used, a to-the-camera appeal to viewers over the closing credits to buy tickets to future screenings, with the pitch that it will “send a message” to make more movies like this one. Call me old-fashioned, but I still believe the best way to get filmmakers to make more of one type of movie is to make a better movie.

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‘The Shift’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, December 1, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for violence and thematic elements. Running time: 115 minutes.